Roleplaying Game

Apr. 19th, 2014

Apr. 19th, 2014

The year was 1945. Through a radio in the corner, Doris Day cooed the lyrics to Sentimental Journey. Blades of a fan twirled lazily in the summer air and the light of a dying afternoon slipped amber-yellow through the window shades. The air smelled of oak and whisky, tobacco and perfume.

It was all a bit of strange juxtaposition, considering the blood spewing from the crown of a man’s head as he toppled from his bar stool onto the slatted floor. Madeleine stood over him, a silver key swinging from her neck and a broken bottle in her hand. The lines up the backside of her pantyhose were crooked and perspiration stuck strands of hair to her neck. “That’s what you get for not calling.”

She crouched next to him and raised her cigarette over the wound for the sole purpose of ashing it at the first opportunity. “And that… is for sticking your Johnson in my roommate,” she hissed.

People were staring. Strike that, men were staring, regulars she knew from the bar, each of them with their own string of conquests. She wiped her forehead and yelled, “What?!”

A row of hats slowly pivoted back to the bar.

The memory of that moment – and all those faces – was as fresh today as it had been in 1945. So when Maddy saw the profile sitting at the bar, she stopped throwing darts and elbowed her way through a crowd of drunk people shouting at the Celtics game. “Hey! Hey, you!”

Ruben was lying on his left side when he opened his eyes, and he lay there for a minute before realizing that there was already an inch of water in the ditch. He had dirt in his mouth. His clothes were filthy and soaked. He was cold.

He tried to sit up, and it took a bit for his muscles to cooperate. Had he passed out again? He remembered the bottle he'd stolen in the last town, stolen and drank while sitting in an abandoned barn. He tilted his face up towards the sky and opened his mouth, allowing the rain in. He spat out the soil, clearing his mouth. He was still cold.